Help with Creating Board

On Fri, 14 Sep 2012 09:21:41 -0400, Ross Waddell wrote:

I'm not sure that's entirely fair, Joern. I've watched a few tutorials

on laying out the board but they were all very simple designs. I fully

understand that the components need to be placed on the board, but what

surprised me is that after moving just a few the air wires connected to

pins that didn't make sense. Rather than put all the comps on the board

with what looked like odd connections, I thought I'd ask first.

I'm still on Eagle 5, but I assume that the behavior is the same in 6:

The ratsnest shows what pin is connected to what.  The ratsnest gets

generated when a part is placed, when a board is created (by clicking the

board icon in the schematic editor) or when you invoke the ratsnest

command.  The ratsnest that is created makes an airwire from any given

pin to the closest pin on the same net -- that connection doesn't change

when you move components around, only when you do another ratsnest

command.

So if you start with your board freshly-generated from the schematic and

place all your parts, the airwires will all be on the right nets, but

they'll be going every which way.  Invoking the ratsnest command again

will re-calculate all the shortest paths, and make things much more

rational.

Also, if you're laying out by hand, it's often useful to lay out a

connection, then do a ratsnest command -- the ratsnest will recalculate

to each bend in the wires that you've laid down, which is sometimes an

aid to laying stuff out.

On the tutorials:  It will be a big help if you pick out one or two of

the simple tutorials and do them.  This will let you get a grasp of the

basic operations before you try to do it in a great big board.  Then when

you go to doing your board you'll be partially over getting overwhelmed

by the tool itself, so it'll be less likely that you'll be overwhelmed by

trying to manage the tool+board.

On getting help locally:  Check to see if there's a local robotics club

or (less likely) an amateur radio club that actively builds stuff. 

Someone there may use Eagle, and may either let you visit them and hang

over their shoulder while they lay out a board, or they may be willing to

go help you for the cost of a six-pack of something nice.

You're welcome to come here, but Oregon is a bit far from Toronto.

--

My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.

My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.

Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?

Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software

http://www.wescottdesign.com

Thanks very much, Tim. That's all very good advice and I will try with a

simple board first.

Oregon is a little far from here, but if I get desperate ...

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Thanks Chuck. I think that it being called 'Layout' threw me off. I changed

it black and it looks good now.

I store my projects and custom libraries in Dropbox so I can work on them

from my iMac or Macbook. The .epf is in the same project folder but I

haven't touched my $ setting (AFAIK)

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

On 09/14/2012 07:56 PM, Ross Waddell wrote:

That box only seems to affect the schematic view, not the board. If I click

black it does change the schematic view, but not the board view. Strangely,

on my laptop when I did this and then reset it to white the board changed

to black. Don't know if it will stay that way ...

Ross,

From either the schematic or the board editors, try: Options->User Interface

The pane titled "Layout" should have the Background set to Black.

The pane titled "Schematic" should have the Background set to White.

These settings are stored in $/.eaglerc (on unix/linux systems) as Brd.Palette and Sch.Palette.  A value of 0 is a black background, while a value of 1 is a white background.  Because of where these values are stored, they are persistent across all projects, but are specific to a user or workstation. The $/.eaglerc file is a text file that can be edited with your

favorite plain text editor (vim, emacs, notepad, etc.)

If these values are getting changed unexpectedly, then this file is

somehow getting changed, perhaps by someone logged under the same user

ID that you use, or perhaps by a tool that synchronizes your $HOME

directory across multiple machines.  (Directory synchronization

presented a licensing problem to a MAC user not long ago.)

HTH,

    - Chuck

That box only seems to affect the schematic view, not the board. If I click

black it does change the schematic view, but not the board view. Strangely,

on my laptop when I did this and then reset it to white the board changed

to black. Don't know if it will stay that way ...

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Am 14.09.2012 15:21, schrieb Ross Waddell:

I'm not sure that's entirely fair, Joern. I've watched a few tutorials on

laying out the board but they were all very simple designs. I fully

understand that the components need to be placed on the board, but what

surprised me is that after moving just a few the air wires connected to

pins that didn't make sense. Rather than put all the comps on the board

with what looked like odd connections, I thought I'd ask first.

Maybe you have watched many but have not DONE things so far.

Tudorials should be easy imho to learn the handling, the more

complicated things come by experience.

 

As for the colour setting, my Options doesn't have a special setting for

the board layout; I only see one for the schematic layout which I want to

leave as white (default). The default for the board view was black, so I

don't know how it changed if I didn't do change anything.

 

I don't have the english version of eagle, but at the very top of your

.sch/.brd should be a tab "options" and if you click that something like

"user interface" or similar should show up. Opening that tab another

menu opens and here on the very top right you have an area to select

your background for .sch and .brd i.e. white, black or coloured.

Besides, eagle has a build in help or just hit the F1 key.

--

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

Joern Paschedag

I'm not sure that's entirely fair, Joern. I've watched a few tutorials on

laying out the board but they were all very simple designs. I fully

understand that the components need to be placed on the board, but what

surprised me is that after moving just a few the air wires connected to

pins that didn't make sense. Rather than put all the comps on the board

with what looked like odd connections, I thought I'd ask first.

As for the colour setting, my Options doesn't have a special setting for

the board layout; I only see one for the schematic layout which I want to

leave as white (default). The default for the board view was black, so I

don't know how it changed if I didn't do change anything.

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Am 14.09.2012 01:57, schrieb Ross Waddell:

not really related but still puzzling - while originally the background was

black when working on the board, it's now gone white. I've moved my custom

libraries around so not sure if that's a factor, but how do I change the

board view back to black?

 

For setting colours check the option box.

I have looked at your drawings in general. So what do you think is wrong

with it? You have to MOVE your parts to the position you want them

within the eurocard frame that represents your board size (or edit that

size and form). After moving your parts execute RATSNEST because this

will recalculate the airwires. After you have positioned your parts you

select the ROUTE command, click on an airwire and start making the real

connections on the top/bottom side of your board.

Since you imho have no idea what a layout really is you really should

RTFM, that is not far away, because it is in your eagle doc directory

--

Mit freundlichen Grüßen / With best regards

Joern Paschedag

not really related but still puzzling - while originally the background was

black when working on the board, it's now gone white. I've moved my custom

libraries around so not sure if that's a factor, but how do I change the

board view back to black?

--

Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.

Marco - I've put the following into my Public Dropbox folder:

Schematic

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/70624775/eagle%20copy/Projects/TOS_E/TOS_E.sch

Board

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/70624775/eagle%20copy/Projects/TOS_E/TOS_E.brd

Custom Libraries

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/70624775/eagle%20copy/Custom%20Files/lbr_RW/Microchip%20PIC.lbr

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/70624775/eagle%20copy/Custom%20Files/lbr_RW/Ross%20Library.lbr

I don't know what you mean by 'assert the rats nest command', but maybe

after reading the tutorials posted by Lupo I will.  :blush:

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Web access to CadSoft support forums at www.eaglecentral.ca.  Where the CadSoft EAGLE community meets.